I'm guessing you're in the UK. Even in my relatively new house (80's), almost all cables are chased in, no conduit anywhere. Standard construction in the UK could be improved by just doing basic obvious things that other countries do.
Likely the US. Unless it’s a very new high-end house or you got lucky and bought the house a contractor built for themselves to a high standard, they did the cheapest thing the electrical code allows them to get away with, which certainly wasn’t conduit in the 80’s, unless that was local code somewhere. Certainly not in CA or FL.
Renting a place built a few years ago in NC. It has only one conduit, it runs from the networking panel to the outside where fiber comes in. Unfortunately there was nothing left in the empty conduit to pull things through with and the installer didn't want to spend half a day with a fishtape, so it didn't even get used. Companies really couldn't care less about doing things right w/ regards to people's homes unless there is some direct monetary consequence for them.
No conduit in NC in my 2004 built house, with the exception of specific chase pipes I asked them to install from the basement to the attic. The drywall was already up to get them to do much more than that. I'm guessing all the cat5 is stapled into place behind the drywall. Fortunately between the attic and the ceiling-tile basement I can get to where I need, it's just a PITA because of fireblocks. So many fireblocks.
